This R13 proposal requests core support for the seventh international FASEB conference on amyloid protein misfolding and disease. The conference is entitled Amyloid Fibril Formation and Protein Misfolding: Molecular Mechanisms and Cellular Effects, and will be held June 28 to July 3, 2009 in Snowmass Village, Colorado. The meeting will promote personal interaction between approximately 150 participants who are involved in studies concerning protein misfolding diseases, such as Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease and type II diabetes. Participants will include chemists, structural biologists, biochemists, cell biologists, researchers who use animal models, and clinicians who treat patients afflicted with amyloid diseases. Although all participants share a common interest in protein misfolding diseases, their diverse backgrounds would prevent many of them from gathering as a group at other meetings. Thus, the conference will provide a unique venue for an interdisciplinary exchange that appears necessary to fully capture all aspects of diseases that are caused by specific aberrant protein structures that, in turn, cause toxicity at the cellular and organ levels. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Protein misfolding plays important roles in diseases such as Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, senile systemic (cardiac) amyloidosis, and type II diabetes. In all of these diseases, certain proteins change their shape and misfold into structures that are toxic to cells. In order to effectively devise treatment strategies for these debilitating diseases, it is important to bring together scientists who study the underlying protein structural changes with scientists who study their proteo-toxic effects, as well as physician-scientists who treat patients afflicted with those diseases. The main goal of the conference is to promote exchange among such a diverse group of researchers.